THE ANTISLAVERY ENTERPRISE: ITS NECESSITY, PRACTICABILITY,
AND DIGNITY; WITH GLANCES AT THE SPECIAL DUTIES OF THE NORTH.
Address before the People of New York, at the Metropolitan
Theatre, May 9, 1855 1
NEW OUTRAGE FOR THE SAKE OF SLAVERY. Letter to Passmore
Williamson, in Moyamensing Prison, August 11, 1855 52
THE PEN BETTER THAN THE SWORD. Letter to Committee of
Publishers in New York, September 26, 1855 58
REPUBLICAN PARTY IN NEW YORK. Letter to a New York Committee,
October 7, 1855 60
REPUBLICAN PARTY OFFSPRING OF AROUSED CONSCIENCE OF THE
COUNTRY. Letter to a Boston Committee, October 8, 1855 61
POLITICAL PARTIES AND OUR FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION. Speech at
a Republican Rally in Faneuil Hall, November 2, 1855 62
ORIGINATION OF APPROPRIATION BILLS. Speech in the Senate,
on the Usurpation of the Senate in the Origination of
Appropriation Bills, February 7, 1856 83
RELIEF OF VESSELS IN DISTRESS ON THE COAST. Letter to the
Director of the Exchange News-room, Boston, February 18, 1856 93
THE EXAMPLE OF WASHINGTON AGAINST SLAVERY NOT TO BE FORGOTTEN
NOW. Letter to a Committee of the Boston Mercantile Library
Association, February 19, 1856 95
CONSTANT EXERTION AND UNION AMONG GOOD MEN. Letter to a
Massachusetts Committee, February 25, 1856 97
ABROGATION OF TREATIES. Speeches in the Senate, March 6 and
May 8, 1856 98
REPLY TO ASSAULTS ON EMIGRATION IN KANSAS. Speech in the
Senate, on the Report of the Committee on Territories, March
12, 1856 121
UNION TO SAVE KANSAS, AND UNION TO SAVE OURSELVES. Letter to
a New York Committee, April 28, 1856 123
THE CRIME AGAINST KANSAS: THE APOLOGIES FOR THE CRIME; THE
TRUE REMEDY. Speech in the Senate, May 19 and 20, 1856. With
Appendix 125
“WHATEVER MASSACHUSETTS CAN GIVE, LET IT ALL GO TO SUFFERING
KANSAS.” Telegraphic Despatch to Boston, June 6, 1856 343
REFUSAL TO RECEIVE TESTIMONIAL IN APPROBATION OF KANSAS SPEECH.
Letter to a Committee in Boston, June 13, 1856 344
THE ANTISLAVERY ENTERPRISE: ITS NECESSITY, PRACTICABILITY, AND DIGNITY;
WITH GLANCES AT THE SPECIAL DUTIES OF THE NORTH.
ADDRESS BEFORE THE PEOPLE OF NEW YORK, AT THE METROPOLITAN THEATRE, MAY
9, 1855.
The principles of true politics are those of morality enlarged;
and I neither now do nor ever will admit of any other.--BURKE,
_Letter to the Bishop of Chester: Correspondence_, Vol. I. p.
332.
True politics I look on as a part of moral philosophy, which
is nothing but the art of conducting men right in society, and
supporting a community amongst its neighbors.--JOHN LOCKE,
_Letter to the Earl of Peterborough: Life, by Lord King_, Vol.
I. p. 9.
Malus usus abolendus est.--LAW MAXIM.
All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to
you, do ye even so to them; for this is the Law and the
Prophets.--MATTHEW, viii. 12.
You have among you many a purchased slave,
Which, like your asses, and your dogs, and mules,
You use in abject and in slavish parts,
Because you bought them.
SHAKESPEARE, _Merchant of Venice_.
From Guinea’s coast pursue the lessening sail,
And catch the sounds that sadden every gale.
Tell, if thou canst, the sum of sorrows there;
Mark the fixed gaze, the wild and frenzied glare,
The racks of thought, and freezings of despair!
But pause not then,--beyond the western wave,
Go, view the captive bartered as a slave!
ROGERS, _Pleasures of Memory_.
Through the influence of the late Dr. James W. Stone, an
indefatigable Republican, a course of lectures was organized in
Boston especially for the discussion of Slavery. This course
marks the breaking of the seal on the platform. Mr. Sumner
undertook to open this course, which was to begin in the week
after his address before the Mercantile Library Association;
but he was prevented by sudden disability from a cold. His
excuse was contained in the following letter.
“HANCOCK STREET, 23d November, 1854.
“MY DEAR SIR,--An unkindly current of air is often more
penetrating than an arrow. From such a shaft I suffered
on the night of my address to the Mercantile Library
Association, more than a week ago, and no care or skill has
been efficacious to relieve me. I am admonished alike by
painful consciousness and by the good physician into whose
hands I have fallen, that I am not equal to the service I
have undertaken on Thursday evening.
“Fitly to inaugurate that course of lectures would task the
best powers in best health of any man. Most reluctantly,
but necessarily, I must lose sight of the inspiring company
there assembled in the name of Freedom to sit in judgment
on Slavery, and postpone till some other opportunity what
I had hoped to say. You, who know the effort I have made
to rally for this occasion, will appreciate my personal
disappointment.
“It is my habit to keep my engagements. Not for a single
day have I been absent from my seat in the Senate during
the three sessions in which duty has called me there; and
never before, in the course of numerous undertakings to
address public bodies, at different times and in different
places, has there been any failure through remissness or
disability on my part.
“Pardon these allusions, which I make that you may better
understand my feelings, now that I am compelled to depart
for the moment from a cherished rule of fidelity.
“Ever faithfully yours,
“CHARLES SUMNER.
“DR. STONE.”
Failing to open the course, Mr. Sumner closed it, on his return
from Washington in the spring, with the following address,
which he was called to repeat in the same hall a few days
later. Yielding to friendly pressure, he consented to repeat
it at several places in New York, among which was Auburn, the
residence of Mr. Seward, by whom he was introduced to the
audience in the following words.
“FELLOW-CITIZENS,--A dozen years ago I was honored by
being chosen to bring my neighbors residing here to the
acquaintance of a statesman of Massachusetts who was then
directing the last energies of an illustrious life to the
removal of the crime of Human Slavery from the soil of our
beloved country,--a statesman whose course I had chosen for
my own guidance,--John Quincy Adams, ‘the old man eloquent.’
“He has ascended to heaven: you and I yet remain here, in
the field of toil and duty. And now, by a rare felicity, I
have your instructions to present to you another statesman
of Massachusetts, him on whose shoulders the mantle of the
departed one has fallen, and who more than any other of the
many great and virtuous citizens of his native Commonwealth
illustrates the spirit of the teacher whom, like us, he
venerated and loved so much,--a companion and friend of my
own public labors,--the _young_ ‘man eloquent,’--Charles
Sumner.”
In the city of New York the same address formed the last of
an Antislavery course. It was delivered in the Metropolitan
Theatre, before a crowded audience, May 9, 1855. Mr. Sumner
had never before spoken in New York. He was introduced by Hon.
William Jay, in the following words.
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,--I have been requested, on the part
of the Society, to perform the pleasing, but unnecessary,
office of introducing to you the honored and well-known
advocate of Justice, Humanity, and Freedom, Charles Sumner.
It is not for his learning and eloquence that I commend
him to your respectful attention; for learning, eloquence,
and even theology itself, have been prostituted in the
service of an institution well described by John Wesley
as the sum of all villanies. I introduce him to you as a
Northern Senator on whom Nature has conferred the unusual
gift of a backbone,--a man who, standing erect on the floor
of Congress, amid creeping things from the North, with
Christian fidelity denounces the stupendous wickedness of
the Fugitive Law and the Nebraska Perfidy, and in the name
of Liberty, Humanity, and Religion demands the repeal of
those most atrocious enactments. May the words he is about
to utter be impressed on your consciences and influence
your conduct.”
The reception of the address attested the change in the public
mind. Frederick Douglass, who was present, wrote:--
“Metropolitan Theatre was literally packed, and, for
two hours and a half, the vast audience, with attention
unwearied, and with interest rising with every sentence
which dropped from the speaker, indorsed sentiments which
many of the same parties would five years ago have stoned
any one for uttering.”